To provide easily accessible legal services to the rural
population, Chief Justice of India P.
Sathasivam on Friday launched
free clinics in 2,648 villages nationwide.
At a
function held at the Supreme Court through videoconference, the CJI, who
is patron-in-chief of the National Legal Services Authority that
executes the programme, said: “The village legal services clinics will
be manned by para-legal volunteers selected by the Legal Services
Authorities and lawyers… The thrust is on assistance in issues relating
to the Below-Poverty-Level cards, electoral identity cards and Aadhaar
cards, gas connections and pension.”
The volunteers
would also attempt to resolve disputes of the people so that they did
not go to courts which were already overloaded with cases. The lawyer
assigned to a clinic would offer people help in accessing justice,
drafting applications for government schemes and filing police
complaints.
Justice R.M. Lodha, Supreme Court judge
and Executive Chairman, NALSA, said a large section of the population
suffered owing to ignorance and illiteracy, and was not aware of its
legal rights. The aim of the legal clinics was to ensure that these
people got their legal rights enforced and “no citizen starves of hunger
of justice.”
Justice A.K. Patnaik, Chairman of the
Supreme Court Legal Services Committee, said the clinics would function
as single- window facilities for giving the common man all types of
services.
Comments
Post a Comment